I Said Bad Words!

We sense a trend. Last week, one of our MomSpeakers posted about the need to implement a "swear jar" in her home to curb her tendency to speak like a sailor. Today, blogger Trish Adkins weighs in with her own struggle to keep it together around the kids. Evidently, cursing in front of the kiddos is something many of us do more often than we'd like. Here's how Trish felt after her latest bout of bad language, symptom of one of those questionable moments of mothering that plague the best of us. 

Today, my 8-year-old lost her glasses.

(This happens once a week. Typically, I am blamed by the 8-year-old for causing her to misplace her glasses. And then there are wild stories of where the glasses could be (none of this is truth-based). And then we rip the house apart, while the 8-year-old "looks" by hiding underneath a couch cushion.

Today, it filled me with an ear-thundering rage, unlike anything I've ever felt.

Then, after I screamed things like: "If you don't have your glasses for school, you are going to fail out of school and end up as a @#$$ gas station attendant."

And she replies: "You ARE SAYING BAD WORDS."

And then I retort: "You should get used to bad words; that is how they talk at gas stations."

(Sincere apologies to all gas station attendants. Honestly, I could not live without you. I was just angry.)

And finally, hours later, after the children have been late to school (due to missing glasses and subsequent eyeglass rage), hugs and kisses and apologies were given all around, the glasses have resurfaced (underneath a pile of dance clothes under a dresser) and I've had a crappy morning, hung over from my rage and with ears still ringing from the booming, thunderous early morning drama, I feel like a pretty terrible, mean mother.

It is just a pair of glasses.

And now, in other blog posts, it might be the time for me to come to some emotional epiphany where I realize that I am not a terrible, mean mother (and I cue you, the readers, to tell me that I am indeed an AMAZING mother).

But the truth is, in those moments of screaming about my brilliant daughter's future as a gas station attendant, I was a pretty terrible, mean mother.

And I don't want to be.

I said bad words. I overreacted. I let my own control issues and rage cloud a moment when I could have been supportive yet stern. It could been a different morning, but instead, I sucked.

It's a good thing my kids are the best there are–they love me unconditionally. I just have to get better at deserving it.

Trish Adkins is a South Jersey mom. This post is adapted from her blog, Yoke.